e leopard made for the boulders
close at hand. The other was taken out of my tent. I had tied it to
the tent pole, but the stout cord snapped like a hair and the darkness
swallowed both leopard and its prey before I could as much as reach my
rifle to get a shot.

"Splendid country for farmin'," Brown remarked, "Splendid. Only you
can't keep sheep because the leopards take 'em. You can't keep hens
for the same reason. Nor yet cows, because the leopards get the
calves--leastways, that's to say unless you watch out awful cautious.
Nor yet you can't keep pigeons, 'cause the leopards take them too. I
sent to England for fancy pigeons--a dozen of em. Leopards got all but
one, so I put him in the loft above my own house, where it seemed to me
'tweren't possible for a leopard to get, supposin' he'd dared. Went
away the next day for some shootin', an' lo and behold!--came back that
evenin' to discover my cook an' three others carryin' on as if Kingdom
Come had took place at last. Never heard or saw such a jamboree. The
blamed leopard was up in the loft; and had eaten the pigeon, feathers
and all, but couldn't get out again!"

"What happened? Nothin'! I was that riled I didn't stop to
think--fixed a bayonet on the old Martini the gov'ment supplies to
settlers out of the depths of its wisdom an' generosity--climbed up by
the same route the leopard took--invaded him--an' skewered him wi' the
bayonet in the dark! I wouldn't do it again for a kingdom--but I won't
buy more pigeons either!"

"What do you raise on your farm, then--pigs?" we asked.

"No, the leopards take pigs."

"What then?"

"Well--as I was explainin' to that Greek Georges Coutlass at
Nairobi--there's a way of farmin' out your cattle among the natives
that beats keepin' 'em yourself. The natives put 'em in the village
pen o' nights; an' besides, they know about the business.

"All you need do is give 'em a heifer calf once in a while, and they're
contented. I keep a herd o' two hundred cows in a native village not
far from my place. The natural increase o' them will make me
well-to-do some day."

The day before we reached Brown's tiny homestead we heard a lot of
shooting over the hill behind us.

"That'll be railway men takin' a day off after leopards," announced
Brown with the air of a man who can not be mistaken.

Nevertheless, Fred and I went back to see, but could make out nothing.
We lay on the top of the hill and watched for two or th